Skiing Between The Lines

For Super Bowl Sunday, myself and a crew of adjunct FIS including Pete, Jake and Jessie, along with two fellas from EasternBackcountry, Austin and Drew, had big plans to ski big(ger) lines (than we’ve skied this season). The mountain had other plans however, and it generally doesn’t like to compromise. I think the experts said it best in a few lines in the middle of that day’s bulletin:

But as for today, expect the usual spatial variability on Mount Washington with hard stable surfaces interjected with new snow instabilities in strong lee locations that were protected from wind scouring. If you’re flexible on where you go today you will have a number of options to remain in stable terrain. However if you insist on traveling through new soft slabs without constant stability evaluations you may possibly avalanche a slope in “Moderate” forecasted terrain and some isolated pockets in areas at “Low”.

Reading between the lines, I think the pros were trying to say: Don’t be surprised if you encounter a line loaded with glorious soft snow that’s begging to be skied, and that wouldn’t hesitate to send you for a ride to visit a snow-starved ravine floor. And such a line was exactly what we found. Of course, everyone knows soft snow is super fun for skiing on, especially in a year when it’s been hard for most folks to get good skiing on the east coast. Who wouldn’t want to schuss a few thousand vert down a mountain on a soft layer of white gold this season? The truth was though, we were obtaining pretty clean sheers on a rime or wind-stiffened bed surface in multiple tests, and no matter how hungry we were, with no room for error, we had to back off; no matter how much of this stuff we owned, a avalanche prone slope is still an avalanche prone slope; and so, after reading between the lines of the bulletin, we’d have to settle for skiing between the lines instead.

JJ

wrote on February 9th, 2012 at 8:50 am

2

WTF: An add for a SCUM SUCLING ambulance chasing lawyer on your website???? Come on folks…..you aren’t THAT desparate for $ are you. It’s SO counter to what BC skiing is all about. These guys kill freedom. I’m Diapointed.

I suspect you saw one of these, because all the ads we choose to appear on FIS are gear related. We never seek out adverts for sleezy stuff like that, and we’d never purposefully put an ad like the one you described up there. I’m going to look into it, and try to kick it out of our ad feed.

From what I understand the google ads are generated by a combination of host site content and the user’s personal browsing history. I think there is a blacklist that can be applied so that certain ads won’t appear anymore, but that would be fairly laborious…

we dug for sure, ml. but in very localized places. And in such places the snow seemed to be in the 3-4 ft range. but that all changes with a day or two of wind and/or rain/snow. So with a grain of salt. Still on the thinner side overall, but not too bad.

Micky O (ILOVE2SKI)

Butch Chamberlain

wrote on February 29th, 2012 at 12:29 pm

17

Skiing between the lines is almost always a good decision. George doesn’t care what your status is in life, you will always look good for a meal. That is something there that no one wants. Yes and I fully agree there are many other lines in that area that can be safely skied. Snow science is something that every BC person should try to understand. Especially this year. Ofcourse in Vt. we are now experiencing what everyone dreams of. But lest we forget, it may all be taken away at anytime. So one must honor Ullr. But more
importantly, trust your second voice. For pilots like myself, we often run into second voice hearings. You know that little man in the brain bucket that says better take another approach. Most of the time he’s right. Ski safely and do your homework. By doing this you will have much more delight and fun.
This I guarantee. Great pics as always. You guys and gals do it very fine.
Very fine, indeed! Have fun while it’s here. BC

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